Live in Thanksgiving Daily

Neal and I both had the wonderful opportunity to speak in church on the topic of "Living in Thanksgiving Daily" and "How Gratitude Brings Us Closer to Jesus Christ."  What a terrific topic!  After pondering, praying, and studying we both delivered the messages we feel our Heavenly Father desired of us to share. 

Neal expounded on how we could "live in thanksgiving daily" by touching on Elder Wirthlin's 2000 talk by the same title.  He suggested that to live in thanksgiving we must:

1.  Open Our Eyes--"Our minds have a marvelous capacity to notice the unusual. However, the opposite is true as well: The more often we see the things around us—even the beautiful and wonderful things—the more they become invisible to us." (See Video)
2. Open Our Hearts--"We must let go of the negative emotions that bind our hearts and instead fill our souls with love, faith, and thanksgiving.  Anger, resentment, and bitterness stunt our spiritual growth....You can cleanse your heart. You can repent of uncleanliness. That is the miracle of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. You can cleanse your heart of impurity."
3. Open Our Arms--"Every time we cheer another’s heart, every time we ease another’s burden, every time we lift a weary hand, we show our gratitude to that God to whom we owe all that we have and all that we are."

He closed with this uplifting thought: "As we strive to open our eyes, hearts, and arms, our step will become a little lighter, our smile will become a little brighter, and the darkness that sometimes broods over our lives will become a little lighter. Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t been an especially grateful person. Rejoice and think of what an impression you will make on those who thought they knew you. Think of how delightfully surprised they will be."

My speech focused on these points:

1. Christ was a perfect example of living in gratitude.
 
"The Savior, Jesus Christ, lived a life of gratitude. He expressed gratitude to His Heavenly Father in prayer when performing miracles (see John 11:41) and for earthly things such as food (see Matthew 15:36), and He gave credit to Heavenly Father for giving us all things (see Matthew 11:27).

The Savior did not seek His own will, but showed gratitude and appreciation to His Heavenly Father through obedience to all He was commanded to do."  --Elder Wirthlin, 2001

2. Practicing thanksgiving regularly helps us to build a relationship with Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

"Through expression of prayerful gratitude and thanksgiving, we show our dependence upon a higher source of wisdom and knowledge—God the Father and his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." --Elder Hales, 1992

Richard Edgley (Oct 2003), in observing church member throughout his travels noted, "As I have pondered these faithful members, I am struck by two qualities they all seem to have. First, regardless of social or economic status or position, their humility leads to submissiveness to the Lord’s will. And second, in spite of the difficulties and trials of life, they are able to maintain a sense of gratitude for God’s blessings and life’s goodness. Humility and gratitude are truly the twin characteristics of happiness."

I loved that sentence. "Humility and gratitude are truly the twin characteristics of happiness."  God wants us to be happy in this life, now.

"To the Lord Jesus, who bought us with a great price, we owe an undying debt of gratitude. It is impossible for us, weak mortals as we are, to fully comprehend and appreciate the suffering he endured on the cross so that he might gain for us victory over death. And even less can we understand the suffering he endured in Gethsemane so that we might obtain forgiveness of our sins.... But nevertheless, he endured it for our sake....All people who understand what Jesus did for us ought to love him and demonstrate that love by rendering to him, in a realistic manner, thanks and gratitude." --Pres. Romney, 1982

3. Pride is in opposition to humility and gratitude: "the twin characteristics of happiness."

"The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.

Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of “my will and not thine be done.”

It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous."--Pres. Benson, 1989

Bonnie Parkin (2007), stated "Gratitude requires awareness and effort, not only to feel it but to express it. Frequently we are oblivious to the Lord’s hand. We murmur, complain, resist, criticize; so often we are not grateful. In the Book of Mormon, we learn that those who murmur do not know “the dealings of that God who … created them.” (1 Nephi 2:12)."

Neal and I were so grateful to be able to take the time to dig a little deeper and reflect on such a beautiful topic.  The speaker always learns the most through preparing and we thank our Heavenly Father for teaching us.  We hope these thoughts on gratitude will help all of us to feel God's love for us as we all "live in thanksgiving daily."